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Wednesday, September 24, 2003
strange day
My body perplexes me. Even more perplexing is the link (or lack thereof) between my body and my brain. I ate too much yesterday, in spite of all my resolutions, and yet today I have magically shed the three pounds that I had put back on over the weekend. This behavior definitely indicates water shifting around, right? But WHY? I am so befuddled by the whole thing. Anyway, I'm back at 175, where I was at the end of last week. I'm wearing the Too Small Jeans and a little t-shirt and feeling just OK about the way I look -- whereas, over the weekend, when I was carrying around three extra pounds according to our scale, I felt like the hottest thing on two legs. Like I said, perplexing. I'm sorry I haven't lost more, but I really can't blame anything but my lack of discipline for that, and I'm just glad I haven't gained. MUST WALK. MUST RESIST. Yesterday I was pretty well-behaved food-wise, until we went to the valley in the evening to buy a birthday present for a friend, and we took the kids to Baskin-Robbins. A curse on that place, that's all I can say. Any establishment that makes mint-chocolate-chip milkshakes should just be shut down by the Weight Police. At least I only got a small.
My sinus whatever thing has subsided into a vicious runny nose. No pain! No headache! No nasty about-to-die feelings, just a box-of-kleenex-a-day runny nose punctuated by occasional violent, extremely repetitious sneezing fits. So that's a positive change. I am wondering if I have allergies. I have resisted having allergies my whole life -- I am not one of those people who seemingly thrives emotionally on the weakness implied by having an immune system which reacts to the wrong things. But through this whole episode I've not had a touch of fever... so I'm wondering. My mother has "hay fever" to a staggering degree. I hope I'm not headed for that. [achoo!]
Meanwhile, as an undercurrent to this whole morning, there's a huge sadness. A woman I've known my whole life -- in typical small-town fashion, she is: the daughter of my grandmother's boss, the wife of a man on my husband's destruction derby team, the sister-in-law of one of T's work buddies and one of my friends, a member of a past "pregnancy club" when it seemed like every female I knew was pregnant including myself, and someone whose sister and brother I went to school with -- was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. It spread, and last week she started having headaches; a scan yesterday showed tumors in her brain; last night she stopped breathing and now she is on life support, not expected to survive. It is really hard to see this happening. Watching someone face eternity is a hugely serious experience even when I have faith and confidence about the person's eternal state -- which is not the case here. And also, just as hard to deal with is the thought of this woman's daughter, who is a few months older than my middle daughter would have been had she lived, growing up without a mother. And not just as a little girl and a teenager -- I have only fully come to understand the importance of my mother as I've become an adult and a mother myself. My heart aches for the woman this little girl will become, having her own children and not having her mom there to experience the strengthened bond between the two of them that that brings. OK, now I'm getting all maudlin and teary... gonna stop and go sneeze some more. Hug your mom today.
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